


Shut Up, Wilde

by ExLibrisCraux



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:22:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24441289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExLibrisCraux/pseuds/ExLibrisCraux
Summary: The world didn't end, and there are things which need to be said.
Relationships: Zolf Smith/Oscar Wilde
Comments: 23
Kudos: 86





	Shut Up, Wilde

Zolf is in the kitchen, packing up the tools and such that he has accumulated during their stay at the safehouse inn. There aren't many, but he treasures them nonetheless, symbols of his discovery of something he loves. A pair of sharp, well-balanced knives; a bamboo rice steamer; a lovely cutting board the innkeeper had gifted him.

A quiet cough from the doorway draws his attention, and Zolf turns his head to see Wilde, slightly stooped to lean on the frame (he is too tall for these doors, has always seemed a bit out of place because of it. Then again, he seems out of place everywhere these days, as though he no longer has any place to fit).

"Am I interrupting?"

Wilde has regained a bit of his old insouciance, although it is muted now, less mocking and more _detached_. Zolf finds it bittersweet, and wonders when he began to miss it.

"Nope. Just packin' up. Need somethin'?"

Wilde glances over his shoulder, then comes into the kitchen. Almost as an afterthought, he slides the door closed behind him, then stands just inside it, scrutinising Zolf's face for a moment that stretches into discomfort. Zolf finds himself fidgeting as though facing a ship's captain for insubordination.

"Out with it, Wilde," he finally says with more weariness than he'd intended. "What's happened?"

Wilde huffs a breath out through his nose, crosses the room to where Zolf stands.

He hesitates. Then, to Zolf's absolute astonishment, Wilde sinks to both knees in front of him. Kneeling, he is still nearly of a height with him. _Lanky bastard_ , Zolf thinks.

Wilde drags a hand through his hair - nearly as long now as it had been when they first met - and looks... _impatient_ , frustrated.

Nervous.

"Zolf, I- have spent a great deal of effort very carefully maintaining my distance from anyone and everyone, for rather a long time now." Wilde pauses, appears to be choosing his words carefully. "I know that this has made me... _difficult_."

Zolf frowns, uncertain where this is going, uncertain what the flighty warmth in his belly is trying to tell him.

(That's a lie. He knows what it is: it is something he has been desperately stomping down for months.)

Wilde chews on his lower lip for a swift second - a tell Zolf has never seen from him before - then continues, "Your patience has been admirable, and- and appreciated. And I don't want to subject you to it any longer."

Where, Zolf wonders, is this _going?_

Wilde looks up, finally, and his expression, the bizarre and unexpected melding of caution and fear and intensity, makes Zolf's breath catch, makes his heart stutter in his chest.

"I understand," Wilde says, nearly a whisper, "if you cannot reciprocate, but I feel it is only fair to give you my truth before we all part ways. Distance is - for me - a fabrication. It always has been. I _crave companionship._ " He does not look away, and Zolf's heart _stops_.

"I crave. _Your_. Companionship, Zolf." 

Wilde's hands (long hands, elegant and deft and beautiful despite scars and calluses and the marks of work and self-deprivation) curl where he has rested them against his thighs, as though suppressing some impulse.

"I suspect - I _hope_ \- I am not... not alone in this. But I _presume_ nothing. And I will take my cues from you. If you wish it, I will walk away and never speak of this again."

Zolf just stares at him, at the gaunt face and the vicious scar and the intense eyes for which he never could pin down a colour, at the full mouth and the broad shoulders and the slim, underfed body and the _hands_ -

"Shut up, Wilde," he growls, and leans down to demand the kiss he has been pretending not to need for what feels like a lifetime.

**Author's Note:**

> So this got scribbled in about ten minutes directly into a Discord server with the express purpose of making people melt, and I was required by all Beholders to drop it here for posterity. I hope y'all enjoy. :3
> 
> Blame goes, as always, to the Wilde ride for inspiration and worms.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Shut Up, Wilde [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24459904) by [KD reads (KDHeart)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDHeart/pseuds/KD%20reads)




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